


The Yellow Gem of Volia

by rosestone



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark Magic, F/F, Magical Crystals, Morally Ambiguous Character, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22459639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosestone/pseuds/rosestone
Summary: Tara's made a good profit over the years from selling artefacts she'd looted from ancient temples.  She'd always known it'd end sooner or later, though.This is not how she expected it to end.
Relationships: Explorer/Forgotten Deity of a Long Lost Shrine
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17
Collections: Writing Rainbow Yellow





	The Yellow Gem of Volia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruis/gifts).



Tara blinked awake, momentarily disoriented. The smooth plaster in front of her meant she was at home, not in the field. The fog in her head suggested she hadn't been home for long - she only ever slept this well in the few weeks when she was first back, exhausted either from the physical work of archaeology or the mental work of finishing her latest paper.

She flexed her hand. _Had_ she finished her paper? It ought to have ached more if she had. And the smell of the ink at the printing press the university ran made her head hurt, even hours after she'd left. Perhaps she was still working on it. Perhaps -

Oh.

Some people, on remembering something unfortunate, decide the best thing to do is to get up and deal with them. Hiding from a problem never made it any better, after all.

Tara preferred to pull the covers over her head and mope.

Something went _thud_ in the kitchen. She valiantly ignored it.

This shouldn't have happened. Not to her. All she'd ever wanted was a job that was easy, entertaining, and profitable, and she'd _found_ it. And barely anyone else was doing it! All right, maybe most people didn't think searching thick forests or humid swamps for forgotten temples was fun, but surely anyone could agree it was better than wizards ruining their eyes reading ancient manuscripts, or alchemists blowing themselves up every other day. Miles better.

And sure. Most people wouldn't think the salary the university paid her was worth much, especially considering she had to pay adventurers for tips and buy her own travel gear. Those people just weren't thinking outside the box. If she took a few items from the temple and they mysteriously ended up on the market - well, who'd know or care? She was the only one who'd been to any of those shrines, the only one who actually knew what they held. It wasn't like the researchers who came in after her would have any idea.

There were a few people she'd met who would have said that she was wrong for doing it. She didn't care. It was _abandoned_. Dead for centuries, if not longer. Why should a god that'd never existed care if she took a few trinkets to line her pockets, items left in worship by someone so long dead they weren't even a skeleton?

At least, that was what she _would_ have said.

Up on the windowsill sat a huge yellow gem. It was something she ordinarily would have left in place - something like that would be too obviously missing when others came to catalogue her discoveries, and it'd be far too obvious on the market - but she hadn't been able to resist. It'd almost seemed to glow in the dark room where she'd found it. She'd known it was a bad idea even as she reached for it - but was it? Was it really? If this was _truly_ valuable, surely it ought to have been out in the main room, plastered with gold and surrounded by rough-carved statues. Not here in a half-collapsed back room.

She should have known. She should have guessed. But why would she have? Looting her choice of items from a long-dead temple hadn't ever brought a curse down on her before.

"Hello, dearest," said a cheerful voice behind her.

She pushed her head a little further into her pillow. "Go away."

"Don't be ridiculous. Now, I was thinking we could change your wardrobe up a little..."

She did her best to ignore the noise behind her. Whatever horrors her perfectly nice clothing was being replaced with, she didn't want to know.

Honestly. Was this so-called goddess happy she'd gotten out of that dank shrine or not? One minute it was all eager seduction and mindblowing sex - sex she couldn't actually remember clearly, admittedly, and that'd left her with a splitting headache and a weird days-long malaise when she woke up the next morning - and the next she seemed to be determined to introduce every minor irritant possible to her life. Replace all her furniture with slabs of roughly-carved stone? Butcher rabbits in the bathroom? Scare off the next-door neighbour? - actually, she was fine with that one. He was a creep. Weird that he hadn't shown up again, though; she would've expected him to show up the minute she'd gotten to the market yesterday and start whining about her new housemate. She'd never heard the end of it when he'd found out he was allergic to her cat, after all.

She really needed to pee.

And it wasn't like Volia would leave if she ignored her for long enough.

With a growl, she rolled over to face the horror. She'd just have to face it. Possibly very quickly on her way to the bathroom.

"Yellow?" 

And not just any yellow. It was bright. Blindingly so. Kind of like a sunflower, but... too much. It was, she decided, the sort of shade that only a goddess could actually conjure up - and it was conjuring, she was sure of that.

"I've always liked this colour," she said, standing back and eyeing her work. "You noticed my stone, didn't you? I've had more than a few disagreements about it with my siblings - most of them favoured shades of red. Thought it was _symbolic_ , or something like that. Honestly! It's just boring. Not to mention unimaginative. Red and black, red and very dark grey, red and red. They went well past too much of a good thing, I'll tell you."

"But this is my clothing, not yours." She wasn't sure the protest was worth much, but she had to say _something_.

"Ah, well." She dusted her hands. "Now -"

"Hang on." She rushed into the bathroom, not giving her a chance to finish, and slammed the door. At least she'd get a few minutes of privacy; the goddess had been quite happy to barge into every part of her life, but she seemed to have realised that watching her while she bathed was a step too far.

There was another rabbit on the floor. Of course. She picked the limp thing up and dropped it into the bucket she'd started keeping around for just that purpose, grimacing. It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been so mangled - sure, eating an animal that'd been used for augury was supposed to be incredibly bad luck, but she'd never let that stop - well. She _had_ been cursed with an incredibly annoying goddess. Possibly it was time to start listening to folk tales. But she could've given the meat to her _cat_ , at least. That couldn't possibly create any problems. But no. There wasn't anything left but bloody fur.

Weird augury, come to think. The priests she'd seen doing it usually only took the guts.

She scrubbed her hands as slowly as she could manage. There wasn't any point in delaying - she'd have to leave eventually, and it wasn't like the goddess would just leave if she stayed out of sight for too long - but it was nice to spend a few moments away from whatever ridiculous thing was going to happen next.

"We do need to talk eventually, dearest!"

She jumped, swore as her elbow hit the faucet, and turned the water off. If this broke the wizardwork and she had to go back to getting her water from a well...

"What?" she said, scowling at her. "What could it possibly be now?"

"It's not as though I've intruded on your time _that_ much." Volia was holding a strand of gold beads up to the light, examining them thoughtfully. Not something that'd come out of Tara's jewellery box - not that she couldn't have afforded it, of course. It was just so... tacky. "But there are a few things we need to discuss."

"If this is about the stone..." She'd known it would be coming. And it wasn't like it'd be unreasonable for Volia to want it back, or unreasonable for her to give it; she only took items from people too long dead to miss them, and that certainly didn't describe her.

She didn't want to give the stone up. It was beautiful and glorious and something in her chest hurt at the idea of letting it out of her sight. But it would be fair.

She'd always hated being fair.

"Not precisely. Though that _did_ set matters off. No, what we really need to discuss is your new duties as my acolyte. I understand they may seem a little unusual to someone in this day and age, but there are certain things I just simply can't go without."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your duties. As my acolyte."

"I _have_ a job," she said, folding her arms. No need to address the acolyte part; that was clearly ridiculous. "I'm a researcher. I find out where old shrines are, I go dig them out, and then I write a paper about it."

"Do you actually _like_ your job?"

"Of course I do!" It was a lie. Judging by Volia's expression, she knew it.

She'd liked her job once. Hadn't she? She'd spent all those years studying at university, after all, and that was a ridiculous thing to do if she hadn't actually enjoyed it.

She liked the research. The moment of discovery, when carved stone hidden behind thick shrubs leaped into focus and she knew she was about to see something nobody else had for centuries. The fame she'd earned from everything she'd published.

She didn't particularly enjoy the _process_ of publishing, though. Or the times when the university dragged her back to give lectures to idiots who couldn't even pretend they thought what she did was interesting.

"I didn't think so," Volia said.

"Look. I am not going to be your - oh, hell." Tara wheeled around, staring at the stone on the windowsill. "It's that. Isn't it? This isn't some kind of curse to punish me for stealing it - well, personally I think it is, but -"

"In a manner of speaking, I suppose? It started things, as I said." Volia paused. "But it doesn't matter really. We're bound, and that stone is... well, it is important in other ways, but right now you might consider it more along the lines of a symbol. You can't cast it away any more than you can get rid of _me_."

"Of course I could get rid of it. Not that I'm going to. It's _mine_. I found it -"

"It's a very nice excuse," she agreed. "A good way to get out of attempting something you could never bring yourself to actually do."

Tara stomped over to the great glittering stone. She wouldn't _really_ get rid of it, of course. It was hers. But it wouldn't hurt to play along. Maybe if she proved the goddess wrong she'd leave.

She couldn't help but pause as her hands closed around the stone. It'd be a shame to risk damaging it. It had to be the most beautiful thing she'd ever stolen, a deep buttery yellow with shots of gold inside. Had it looked like that before? It must have. The old shrine had been dark and dusty; it was no wonder the stone hadn't showed to best advantage there.

Volia cleared her throat.

"Oh, give me a moment, will you?" Honestly. Surely a goddess ought to have more patience. She hefted the stone, blinking away a sudden dazzling beam of light - wasn't it too early for this much sun to be coming through her window? - and threw.

And staggered into the wall, hands clenched so tightly around the stone they ached.

"See? You can't get rid of it."

She jerked her hands towards the floor. Her treacherous fingers stayed locked around the stone.

"I don't know if it would break at this point anyway," the goddess added contemplatively. "It isn't as strong as it used to be yet, but it's certainly doing better than it was locked away. It's lucky you found it, really. Someone who actually knew what they were seeing could have made things very hard for me."

"What do you _mean?_ "

She sighed and sat down on the bed. "Let me put it to you simply. You took my sacred stone out into the sunlight and bled on it - remember that scraped palm? - so I awoke. And then you accepted my offer of the sacred congress -"

"You seduced me!"

"Didn't it ever occur to you to wonder why?"

"It seemed pretty reasonable for you to be horny after who knows how many centuries stuck underground!"

"Look. Darling. The fact of the matter is that we're bound together now, irreversibly so. And it's not so bad, being an acolyte. You're automatically my High Priestess, for one. You would share in everything I'm given: wealth, power... If I get strong enough, even lifespan."

"Nobody can manage that," Tara said, folding her arms. "Do you know how long the alchemists have been trying?"

"Perhaps they ought to recruit gods, then. They might have had more success. No, I know it's possible because I've done it. Back when the new gods came." Her face fell into pensive folds. "We had a great empire, you know. Worshippers in every land from sea to sea to mountain range. Nobody dared gainsay us, let alone those other little gods who'd managed to scrape up followers in _our_ lands. And then the new gods came, racing through like wildfire. Destroying us one by one."

"You can't kill a god," Tara said uncertainly.

"It's not easy, but yes, it's possible. We need worship and sacrifice to thrive; without that we start to fade away, until all that's holding us together is our idol and whatever remaining acolytes we've managed to hold onto. They stole our worshippers, and without them we had barely any sacrifices. They killed our acolytes, destroyed our idols - except for mine." She smirked. "I was the only one who thought of it. While Ylanda lived, they couldn't destroy my stone; by the time I no longer had the power to keep her alive beside me, nobody remembered they needed to come back and break it. And so there I stayed... until you found me."

Tara had the uneasy feeling she was missing a _lot_ in that statement. Maybe one of the researchers who used to follow her to the shrines she'd uncovered might have had a better idea of what questions she needed to ask. There was one thing leaping out at her, though. "Sacrifice? Is that what you've been doing with the rabbits?"

"They're better than nothing," she said with a shrug. "Enough to bring my stone back to life. There are more useful sacrifices, though."

She licked her lips. "Like... food? Vows of chastity?"

"Ha. No. Come on." Volia gestured her out into the kitchen. There was a little door there she hadn't seen before, tucked away behind the great stone slab that had replaced her table. Now that she thought about it, it did look rather... ominous.

She followed Volia down a set of stairs that, again, hadn't been there before. If this was what she could do without worshippers or sacrifice... Tara had to admit she was curious. Just a little.

At the bottom there was a basement, and on the floor -

"I am not sacrificing a _person_."

"Oh, not just any person, dearest. This is your neighbour! I caught him watching you through a crack in the wall while you were bathing yesterday." She stroked his hair. He didn't stir. "Rather unpleasant of him. Certainly not the kind of behaviour he ought to be directing towards my acolyte."

"Um." This was manipulation. Blatantly so. And she oughtn't let it change her actions. She couldn't kill someone, even if he was even nastier than she'd thought he was.

"It's only one," Volia continued, running a warm hand down her arm. "Nothing so terribly bad, is it? It's not as though I'm asking you to sacrifice a _good_ person. And don't forget what I promised you. Wealth, and power, and immortality. You're really a rather good fit for me. I'd quite like to keep you around."

"You said sacrifice _s_ ," she managed.

"Oh, well, they don't all have to be people. There are other useful things! And with enough worshippers, I don't really _need_ a lot of sacrifice. They balance each other out."

Need wasn't the same as want. Tara knew that. She needed food and sleep and shelter, and she wanted -

\- wealth, power, immortality -

"It's just one cut," Volia whispered into her ear. "That's not so much. Is it?"

The Yellow Gem of Volia sat on the windowsill, gathering up sunlight into itself. In older, stronger times, it might have used that light to draw worshippers' eyes to itself. Few could walk away when it was in their view.

In these godless days, however -

It glowed, golden light almost seeming to spill out of it onto the ground. The house around it might almost have been mistaken for a grand temple in that light.

A woman out on the street stopped and stared.

Perhaps it was finally time for the old days to return.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fic, Ruis!


End file.
